There are two map rooms in Finye. The first, where the student protesters are printing clandestine tracts, has a world map, a map of Europe and another too indistinct to be made out. The world map is the dominant, signifying the students' openness to the world beyond Mali, and framed from different angles to emphasise the variety of perspectives that such openness entails.

The second, the military governor's office, is dominated by a map of Mali, represented as isolated not only from the world but even from its immediate neighbours, removed from its African context. Within its borders, the country has rivers, a lake, varied terrain and differentiated regions, but beyond its borders there is nothing:

'Many contemporary filmmakers use techniques of prettiness to access the politics of world. Abdherramane Sissako, for instance, presents in Bamako (2006) a richly textured map of global economics within the visual and auditory space of an African village. (…). Sissako uses decorative patterns and colors to form a dynamic social cartography.' Rosalind Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), p.27